“The metaphor is funny but befuddled. In strip poker, you win by getting naked last. In trade deals, the best outcome for each party is everyone getting naked together: that is, all countries eliminating all tariffs and subsidies. “But here is what most commentators seem to misunderstand about trade poker: even if the others keep their clothes on, you are still better off getting naked.” The naked truth about barriers to foreign trade – Jamie Whyte, NZ HERALD The Economist: The TPP is dead – MACRO BUSINESS TPP and self-delusion – DIM POST

Happy news. “When the house resumes next Tuesday, David Seymour will table a bill for pubs to open early and show the Rugby World Cup. “Is this needed? Not strictly. Humans got on for 100,000 years without pubs or international sports tournaments. The point is, though, that responsible adults should be able to get together for a community gathering over a pint, coffee, or breakfast to cheer on their team.” Free Press - Rugby games and sea change – ACT.ORG.NZ

"You have one life, and it should be precious. It should be an end in itself, not merely a means to the ends of others. You should not be obligated to sacrifice yourself to the wishes and needs of others. Your life is yours--and you ought to have a moral right to live it."- Peter Schwartz, ‘Reconceiving the Idea of Selfishness,’ HUFFINGTON POST

"However, Lieb notes, that the U.S. is only seeing 350 new general surgeons a year. That is not even a replacement rate, she observed. Lieb professed that being taxed to death and having to send so much money to the government is a disincentive for doctors to work at full capacity. “Our young people are not trained as well as we were,” she continued." U.S. Doctor Shortage Looms – Steven Branch, LINKED IN

“The real-world Gravity Payments sounds a lot like the fictional Twentieth Century Motor Company from Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged, and while the quotations from the real-world employees who left Gravity Payments do not sound quite as passionate as the fictional John Galt, the message is the same.” Atlas Shrugs - Randall Holcombe, MISES WIRE

“ABSTRACT” … Contrary to standard assumptions, there is little evidence that these markets experienced reduced or delayed innovation or output despite intensive levels of patent issuance and litigation.” The Myth of the Patent Anti-Commmons – ORGANIZATIONS & MARKETS

“One lesson in particular comes from the late Professor Conquest, who did perhaps more than any other historian to disabuse some of the soft left of their romantic views about the Soviet Union. Western politicians in secularised countries scramble around trying to understand the appeal of Islamic State to young, European Muslims. The parallels with the Soviet Union are obvious, and a useful frame of reference." We need a Robert Conquest figure to demolish the pro-Islamist left – NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY

“Why are children in Montessori classrooms organised into three-year age groupings? Its all about fostering peer learning, and social development and supporting the deepening of skills and understanding. This article from our website explains more.” Three-Year Age Grouping – MONTESSORI AUSTRALIA

“"In 1985, Obama’s science advisor John Holdren predicted that by now we’d be approaching a billion CO2-related deaths from famine." Thought you’d like to know. The Obama-Clinton One-Two Blackout – Alex Epstein, FORBES

“A lot people think that rising human population poses a threat to society because, logically, there is a limited amount of dry land on earth, and so living space and farmland must “run out” eventually… Obvious, intuitive, and wrong. It’s wrong because, while it’s true that Earth is not growing, the supply of land is not fixed... Resources are an economic, not a physical, phenomenon” The World Is Bigger than You Think – Daniel Bier, F.E.E.

”Bill Whittle of PJTV annihilates the leftist fantasy, most recently espoused by Jon Stewart, that the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ‘immoral,’ and that Harry Truman was a ‘war criminal’.” From the Archives: Jon Stewart's Stupid Nuclear Commentary – Bill Whittle, PJTV ”For those Japanese who wished for an end to the bloodbath, what fell out of the sky on those two days in 1945 were, in the words of Japanese Navy Minister Yonai Misumasa, ‘gifts from heaven.’ Hisatsune Sakomizu, chief cabinet secretary of Japan, said after the war: ‘The atomic bomb was a golden opportunity given by Heaven for Japan to end the war’.” “Gifts from Heaven”: The Meaning of the American Victory over Japan, 1945 – John Lewis, OBJECTIVE STANDARD

“So far, Piketty’s critics have offered only technical objections to his number crunching without contesting his apocalyptic political thesis, which is clearly wrong. I know this because over the last years my teams conducted research in the field exploring countries where misery, violence and wars are rampant in the 21st century. What we discovered was that most people actually want more rather than less capital, and they want their capital to be real and not fictitious.” Hernando De Soto dissects Thomas Piketty’s apocalyptic political thesis – Hernando De Soto, MIAMI HERALD How Piketty Misses the Point – Deirdre McCloskey, CATO Piketty and the Shoe Event Horizon – Perry Metzger, SAMIZDATA

“So many economists today spend more and more time mastering higher-level mathematics and econometric techniques that they simply never master basic microeconomics… From my reading of him, I judge Piketty to be among them” ~ Don Boudreaux, Cafe Hayek, McCloskey On Piketty Again

"Economics departments are dominated by Marxism, which is taken straight or on the rocks, in the form of Keynesianism." ~ Ayn Rand in Philosophy: Who Needs it

“Abortion rights advocates should not cede the terms "pro-life" and "right to life" to the anti-abortionists. It is a woman's right to her life that gives her the right to terminate her pregnancy. Nor should abortion-rights advocates keep hiding behind the phrase "a woman's right to choose." Does she have the right to choose murder? That's what abortion would be, if the fetus were a person…” Abortion Rights Are Pro-life – Leonard Peikoff, HUFFINGTON POST

“What makes a city habitable for centuries, even millennia? This list of the twelve longest-inhabited cities unsurprisingly points toward temperate climate, relatively stable water supply, and a certain intangible tenacity on the part of its human inhabitants…” 11,000 year lease: the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities – ARCHINECT NEWS

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